Pangasinan Comelec now accepting COCs for 2010 elections

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines — Election officers in all the 44 towns and four cities in this vote-rich province including the provincial election office here are all ready to accept certificates of candidacy (COCs) of aspirants in the 2010 elections starting yesterday till Dec. 1.

Lawyer Reddy Balarbar, provincial election supervisor of this vote-rich province, met all his election officers (EOs) yesterday to discuss important matters including the clustering of precincts that was originally five only into seven with maximum 1,000 voters per precinct as per advice from the Commission on Elections because of the available number of counting machines to be used.

He said their offices started to accept (COCs) from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. starting yesterday until midnight of Dec. 1. He advised his EOs to inform candidates to personally file their COCs because of the new system called Candidates Information Management System where their demographic data will be put in their database together with their picture that will be submitted to Manila.

He said candidates with more than one party nomination from national political parties, like Lakas-Kampi and another from Nationalist People’s Coalition, Liberal Party, Nacionalista Party, among others, must choose only one party nomination to use in his or her COC, otherwise the aspirant becomes an independent candidate.

But if he or she has already chosen a national political party and has another provincial party endorsing the bet like in the case of Biskeg na Pangasinan which is a Comelec-accredited provincial political party, then the candidate may use both his or her national party nomination and Biskeg’s nomination, Balarbar said.

“For national and provincial, based on my query in 2007, there is no problem like Lakas-Biskeg, it can be),” he said. Balarbar said their regional director had advised them to request for police assistance from Nov. 28 onwards to Dec. 1. He said traditionally, candidates flock to their election offices to file their candidacy on dates ending in 8 for belief it brings good luck. Pangasinan has 1.5 million voters as of last count.